


Thousand Eyes

by Eya_Silvers



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, FitzSimmons - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, I am so sorry, Inspired By Tumblr, Jessica Jones AU, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 21:10:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7377583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eya_Silvers/pseuds/Eya_Silvers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz lies awake, and watches it all play again, in a flash, without mercy for his tortured mind; it feels like thousand eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> THE IDEA CAME TO ME OVERNIGHT WHEN I FELL UPON THIS WONDERFUL GIFSET ON TUMBLR http://jemmamaximoff.tumblr.com/post/146760484258/idecaesteckers-fitz-kilgrave-made-me-do-it  
> So the idea is not mine, I just got inspired by it... but I'm having fun torturing my favourite characters!  
> Also idk why I'm writing this now, I have three other fics that I should be writing instead but I just needed to introduce this.

Puke.

His knees tremble under the bony weight of his body and he falls, reaches for the basket and vomits loudly inside it. His insides churn as his stomach empties, and he knows it's a natural body reaction to disgust or a traumatic event, like shock. He has learned from watching Jemma study during their years at the university and he still learns every day just by looking at the different shadows the light creates around her merry smile.

Spit.

He gargles once more and doesn't make the mistake to run a tongue on his teeth like he did the last time. He does his best not to focus on the horrible smell and tries not to think that _this_ came out of _him_ , because it only makes him puke again. His hand goes for the handkerchief in his pocket, and he wipes the corner of his mouth with it.

Breathe.

He closes his eyes and sits down, now fully aware of the pain caused by his fall. He's going to have bruises. He has lost count by now. He brings his shaking hands together, attempts to control his breathing just like May taught him. Breath in, breath out, slowly. Chest expanding, chest tightening, regularly, measurably. He is in control and he repeats it to himself.

Mantra.

 _I'm fine_ , he thinks, eyes shut so tight it almost hurts. _I'm fine and I'm not going back there. Ever_. He doesn't know if it should make him feel better because it doesn't, but doctor Garner told him to repeat these words in his head until he finds a meaning to them, so he repeats them.

"Leadsworth." he whispers, pressing trembling thumbs against his forehead. "A.S.T. Bus. Jemma." And then again, without a break, until he finally calms down and he is able to see without tears blurring his vision. "Leadsworth. A.S.T. Bus. Jemma. Leadsworth. A.S.T. Bus. Jemma. Leadsworth..."

He has no idea how much time passed between his crisis and the end of it. He only knows that he can breathe again when a small hand caresses his and slowly takes them away from his face. He opens his weary eyes to meet Simmons's worried face, and he just needs her to smile like she used to. She doesn't do much smiling anymore, and he knows it's because of him.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks gently, her fingers brushing against his soothingly. He tries not to shiver at her touch. He doesn't like to be touched anymore.

He doesn't pull out his hands but she feels his tension, and understands.

She sits by his side, face turned his way, and he's suddenly aware of how sick he must look. Cheeks void of any color, veins popping abnormally, puffy eyes and sweat dripping down his brow. He doesn't hide his face though, she has seen him in a worse condition and so has he.

He makes a small gesture toward the night-night gun on his desk. "I tried to improve it." he explains. "Didn't work out as I intended."

Simmons slowly nods, fingers still interlocked with his almost absently. "It reminded you of-"

"The gun, yeah." he cuts a little too abruptly, so he lowers his head in an apology.

Simmons doesn't get offended. She never does, and he doesn't know how she can be so perfect.

"So it reminded me of-" He retracts one hand away from Simmons' caresses to snap his fingers angrily as a veil covers his eyes and his stomach revolts. He doesn't want to puke again, not in front of her. He still has some dignity left. "-of how I..."

"You don't have to say it if you think you're going to feel bad afterwards." she says quickly.

"Yeah, I know, I know." he says, trying to gain control over his breathing once more. If he doesn't have at least control over his own body, he doesn't have control at all. "It's just... Garner said that talking about it would help with the recover."

She sighs. He can feel her hot breath on the skin of his neck, giving him goosebumps. "Well I'm no Garner." she chuckles. "But I'm certainly not the person who's going to encourage you to do what you don't want to do."

He suddenly finds the strength to turn his head and meet her stare. And somehow, he can't break away. She stares and he stares back, mouth dry and this awful taste stuck in his throat.

"I have to clean up-" he remembers.

He tries to get up but Simmons stops him, brings him back to her. "I already changed the basket. It's like nothing ever happened."

He frowns, revolted. "Why the hell did you do that, it was my puke-"

"I've done so much worse in the morgue, Fitz!" she replies, and he loves how her eyes just pop up whenever they have an argument. "Remember that time when I split open this poor man's belly?"

"His gut still haunts me, along with that cat's liver."

"Oh no..." she shouts out, rolling her eyes. "Please don't bring that up, not again!"

"Well I'm sorry we don't have the same definition of 'traumatic'!"

Simmons' eyes widen before he has the time to react to his own words. He swallows hard, the scent of vomit still very present in his mouth.

"I think I will take a shower." he murmurs, turning his back on her.

She nods, almost too quickly. "Do you want me to help you?"

"I can undress myself, Simmons, I'm not a child." He regrets the words as soon as he spurts them out, but what is done is done. He knows how blunt he is now, how damaged, but he also knows that Simmons' perfection irritates him. She is so willing to help, and he doesn't understand why. Why she is so okay, so accepting, so ready to welcome the new broken him and treat him with a smile, after everything he's done.

He undresses as fast as he can so he can feel sooner the warm water hit his bare skin and mottle it with red dots. He observes his hands, the same hands that held the pistol a few months ago, the same hands that, splattered with blood, put an end to a life. He squeezes them into fists and the sensation of Simmons' fingers brushing against his skin slowly fades under the burning smacks of the water falling on him.

He doesn't deserve anyone's forgiveness. Not after what he's done.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry.
> 
> ...
> 
> also, thank you for your kudos and comment! I appreciate them all.

The jingling of the metal instruments when she takes them between her fingers. Their weight and their length meticulously measured before she takes the longer one, the sharp one. She inspects it at the shiniest light of her workspace, flashes it, observes its pointy edge that would most likely cut through skin if applied against it. She lowers the surgery knife, hovers it above the dead man's chest. She slowly cuts through the flesh, takes her time to make it as clean and bloodless as possible because she knows that Fitz hates it when she dirties the lab (she keeps telling him that it's _their_ lab, which means that they're sharing it and have to accommodate to each other's needs but as usual he can't be more pigheaded (not that his head looks like a pig's of course, his head is perfectly fine with really parallel eyes, very blue) ).

She forces herself to stop thinking before it goes south again.

She moves the knife around, cuts a square of flesh into the corpse's chest that she turns inside out. There, she can see the ribcage in its pure bloodied beauty.

With her gloved hand she goes to fix the protection glasses on her nose before reaching for the hammer and smash the ribs one by one. She takes the bones off, places them into the small yellow tray that has on the side the letter L written in a black marker (L is for lemon is for leftover).

She forces herself to stop thinking _right now_ before it goes south again.

She reaches the heart, the lungs, the stomach, the kidney, the liver, the spleen. She stares a second at the kidney before deciding that she doesn't like its color, and throws it inside the yellow lemon tray.

She digs a little around with her fingers and her gloves quickly get soaked with blood that already dries itself.

With a sigh, she turns away from the body, puts off the previously white gloves, takes a pen and starts her report.

 

 

 

 

> _By: Dr Jemma Simmons_
> 
> _Date: December 20th, 2014_
> 
> _Subject: Caucasian male unidentified, 6ft 6, brown-haired brown-eyed, around 30 years old._
> 
> _Notes: have dissected the chest area of the body and discovered nothing out of the ordinary. Second step: brain dissection._

 

 

The tip of her pen trembles and leaves an unwanted black line in lieu of the dot after the last word. She forces her hand to steady. If her pen held ink, it would have already stained all the workspace.

Fitz would have been furious.

She almost breaks down. Almost.

She has a job to finish so she puts new gloves on, fixes the enormous glasses up on her nose that make her eyes pop comically, grabs the saw, and plunges the instrument against the body's skull, right before the hairline.

She had hoped she would have found something unusual. She doesn't. The brain is as normal as it can be, and it puts her in a rage.

Her glasses keep going down her nose. She violently takes them off and throws them at her feet. She had been hoping they'd break but they don't, being able to resist a mini explosion. She considers slamming her heel against the plastic, smash it, destroy it under her foot. Instead she grabs the pen and presses it too hard against the paper.

 

> _End of report_
> 
>  

When May steps into the lab, Jemma's first action is wiping her puffy eyes with her coat sleeve. Her second is turning toward her superior and smile joylessly, a little awkwardly, like nothing happened and the redness of her eyes and the glasses on the ground are nothing but a mistake she'll fix.

If only.

Jemma doesn't even dream anymore, partly because she doesn't sleep enough to reach the dream period. But it's worth it. She can't stand seeing him in her dreams anymore, especially because she knows that he won't be there when she'll wake up.

"Yes?" she asks, voice a little shaky.

May's face remains a block of apathy, but Jemma has since learned to differentiate her emotions, and right now everything is in those dark eyes.

"You should come with me." the pilot says emotionlessly. She's wearing her black everyday leather suit, her sunglasses hanging from the collar. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing standing out, nothing relevant, nothing at all, just like the most normal dead body ever laid down on the operation table.

Jemma's breath is trapped in her chest. "What is it?" she asks once more, unable to contain the flutter of desperate hope in her chest. "May. I see it in your eyes. Something happened and it's not about my report."

May stares at her during a few more seconds, her face void of any sentiment until a sigh escapes from her lips. "Just follow me to the Zephyr, Simmons."

She waits for the tiny scientist to drop the lab coat, the gloves and the ponytail.

They walk side by side to the garage, not talking, shoulders merely touching. There is a reason May isn't saying anything, Jemma thinks. She saw it in her eyes, this hope, yet May didn't say anything. Something must have happened. Something must have came up, something bad, or why is she so stiff? Why are they so stiff?

Half of the crew is already in the Zephyr. May walks to her usual place inside the cockpit. Daisy instantly shifts toward her friend when she steps inside the plane, and pulls her into a powerful hug. Jemma squeezes her hard, buries her nose into Daisy's shoulder to mask her face.

"You okay?" the little sister she never had breathes out softly.

Jemma tries to smile behind her back. "About as okay as you are."

Daisy chuckles humorlessly. "Yeah, that's an other way to say that you feel like crap."

They pull out slowly and Jemma takes a step forward to stand next to her, as they usually do when there's a meeting. At Daisy's left, Lincoln smiles to Jemma and she echoes his attempt. At Lincoln's side, Mack waves.

"You holding on, Simmons?" he asks gently.

She nods once. "I'll be better once we find him."

He nods once. "Of course."

Jemma can't help but glance at her right, to the spot that is usually taken by the boy a head taller than her, with the blue shiny eyes, the little scruff he forgets to shave every now and then, the awkward stand, the way he stares at her when she's talking and makes her feel like she's the smartest person in the room when in fact he is.

She forces herself to stop thinking before it goes south once again.

Bobbi and Hunter arrive soon after, both in combat gear. Jemma lets go of the breath she hadn't realized she was holding when she sees her. Bobbi takes her in a hug just like Daisy did, and Hunter awkwardly pats her shoulder.

"We're gonna find him." she says forcefully. "Then we're gonna find the sons of bitches that took him away from us and make them pay. You can count on me."

Jemma smiles, the kind of smiles that make the hair at the back of your neck stand up. "Count on me too."

"I think the whole team is ready to kick their asses." May calls out from her cockpit.

The boys cheer and the girls give each other fierce nods, the ghost of a hard smirk hovering above their lips.

Coulson appears last. He takes a few steps inside the Zephyr, gestures May to shut entirely the plane. Once they're locked inside and he knows everyone's eyes are on him, listening intently, he clears his throat.

"We got them." are his first words.

Jemma breathes out slowly. Black dots fly before her eyes and she feels like she's going to pass out, but Daisy's hand on hers brings her back when she thinks she's going to fall.

"Is he okay?" Mack asks. He used to be Fitz's best male friend, after all, and nothing is going to change that.

"In what state?" Lincoln says, ever so medic.

Coulson stops the questions by raising a single hand, and Jemma sees how he's trying so hard to smile even though shadows surround his facial features.

"He's in New York." he replies almost too calmly for it not being an act. "More precisely in the Kitchen. He's been living in an apartment for the past month with the man, or men, we're tracking, but this isn't new information to you."

"What is new information, is that we're going to get him tonight."

Jemma swallows the hard lump in her throat, a new hope seeing the light in her chest along with the anxiety of what could happen.

She's a scientist. She has to oversee all the eventualities, good or bad. There is a reason Coulson wants them to go fish Fitz now and not any time sooner or later, and she has a feeling she won't like that reason.

"As you already know," he goes on, pacing in front of his team, "we were able to localize Fitz to New York until he disappeared without a trace. Hunter went undercover with the goal to find anything suspicious, alien, even Inhuman. New York is already nicknamed the super city with it's many heroes - Tony Stark, Captain America (Coulson can't suppress a smile), and the latest Devil, but Hunter also found the purple man rumor."

The ex-mercenary nods. "Pretending to be a tramp during a few weeks was the highlight of my life."

"I'm sure it was, and it payed off. Hunter found out that a large part of The Big Apple's tramps was somehow linked to this unknown man, and that many of those who crossed paths with him... ended up killing themselves in very imaginative ways."

"Simmons has been studying some of these bodies." he finishes, glancing at her.

She bites her lower lip, ashamed. "I found nothing of relevance yet, but with more time, I'm sure I can-"

"We don't have time, Jemma." he says with the softest tone. "I sent Hunter at the chase of the man, and what he found wasn't pretty. That's why I don't want you on this mission."

Jemma's jaw goes slack. "With all due respect, sir, I am as much as an agent of SHIELD than you are! I am perfectly capable of handling-"

"And none of us doubt it. But the sentimental value you hold to Fitz might get in the way of that operation."

Jemma feels herself ready to explode with anger because of that injustice, but Daisy is quicker.

"Jemma never gave up on him when we were all thinking he was dead, Coulson. Letting her stay here without her knowing what exactly is happening is not fair!"

"I agree." Bobbi says before giving a quick smile to Jemma. "Being so close to Fitz might not be a bad thing. Revenge is something you can use to fuel your fights on the field."

"It also makes you do idiotic things sometimes." Hunter murmurs before Bobbi nudges him.

"This is Turbo we're talking about." Mack adds. "Seeing Simmons might do him good, give him the energy to get out of the hell he's in."

"Coulson." May calls out. "We need every agent we have for this."

Coulson considers his team in a long silence.

"Jemma, do you think you can do this?" he asks softly.

She tilts her chin up. "I've been preparing myself for six months now. I just want to get him back."

 

* * *

 

"Now!"

Jemma turns her back and covers her ears, squeezing her eyes shut, until the shockwave has passed and the air is filled with smoke and debris of blown up door. There is a pause, in during which she grabs the pistol at her waist and heads through the hole that Bobbi created. Hunter goes first, gun raised at head-level. Bobbi follows close, never losing sight of him, and Jemma secures their back.

She chokes on the air the first few seconds before trying to breathe through her sleeve, and slowly the atmosphere around them disinfects itself from the debris, allowing them to see clearly and breathe normally.

Everything looks perfectly normal, and that's what strikes her in the first place. It's the dream apartment, one she usually thinks of buying when she'll reach retirement. Enormous shelves filled with expensive-looking books, an entire portion of the wall that's only purpose is holding the television, two long couches, even the floor, squishy when they walk on it with their combat boots, is nothing but a giant red carpet.

Hunter tilts his head to the side. Bobbi nods and forces the bathroom door open.

Jemma heads for the kitchen while the mercenary goes for the four rooms. She opens, one by one, the many cupboards, finds the dishwasher, kitchen gloves, soap, then cans, rotten cabbage, rotten fruits, a rotten-

Jemma closes the cupboard.

She gets on her feet and calls out for her teammates.

"You found anything?" Bobbi asks as she gets out of the kitchen and analyzes a closet.

"Nothing useful, just a dead cat." Jemma lets out, like strangled.

"What?"

Bobbi comes to her side with a frown. "A dead cat, you were saying?"

"I wouldn't open this cupboard if I were you."

Bobbi purses her lips together. "I wasn't going to. How the hell did a cat die here?"

"It had a collar and a nametag." Jemma says, eyes locked on the cupboard out of which the terrible smell is already coming out. "It was probably the pet of whoever used to live here. Poor little one."

"Nothing here!" Hunter yells from the other side of the apartment.

He appears in the living room soon after.

"I cleared all the rooms. There's nothing. No one."

Jemma squeezes her hands into trembling fists. "He was supposed to be here."

"Maybe the pussy who took him saw us coming?" he supposes as he kicks a mahogany table.

"In that case they can't be far away." Bobbi says.

Static pours out of the coms in their left ears, surprising them.

"Get out of here, all of you!" shouts May's voice with an hinge of panic and loads of fury.

Horror slams into Jemma's chest, surrounding her throat like a clenched fist. She doesn't feel herself moving but she does it by instinct; Bobbi grabs her arm, sends her stumbling forward and they run back to the hole in the wall, ignore the elevator and make it to the staircase of the building until

A deafening blast breaks the air and their bones, slams their bodies backwards into the walls (Jemma is certain she heard something snap but she has other things on her mind). The ground continues to shake underneath their feet and she thanks god they evacuated the building before trying anything.

Something else explodes within two seconds after the first blast, making Jemma scream and raise her hands to protect her face - the chilly air warms up distinctly and grills the skin (it smells like burning flesh and she thinks about this bloody cat inside its tiny cupboard and how it had have died and how it had probably tried to claw its way out of its trap but failed and died of starvation and oh Fitz-)

Heat is still singing her skin when she stands up shaking. She grabs the rail for some support but lets go of it with a hiss as it sears a tattoo onto her palm.

"Hunter!" Bobbi screams desperately.

The walls have blown up and the hole they had created to enter the apartment is nothing but a memory now.

There is nothing. In lieu of the apartment, there is just a void in the structure, a giant gap in the building. If they fall, they'll land six stories down, flattened and brain matter smashed on the sidewalk.

Jemma clamps a hand against her mouth, but she can't suppress the cry that escapes her lips when she sees Hunter's body covered in purple dust, right before the free fall.

The snap she heard is the one of his broken legs.

Bobbi is already at his side and instantly places two fingers against his jugular. Jemma lets out a breath of relief when she articulates those three little words:

"He's alive."

Then, Bobbi holds a finger against her ear, curses loudly. "May, Hunter's out. His heart's beating but we can't move him or evaluate his injuries. We need back-up!"

Static again from the other end, an eternity flies by before May replies.

"Daisy and Lincoln are on their way. Stand down."

"Copy." Bobbi nods twice, once for May, once for herself. She looks up to Jemma. The little scientist can see every bit of professionalism deteriorate under the possibility of losing Hunter. "Jemma, go." she says in a rush, stroking Hunter's purpled hair. "You've got one chance of getting him back. Don't miss it. Go!"

Jemma's insecurities find their way back to the surface, and she looks around her maniacally. "But what about-"

"I'm with him and I'm always gonna be with him." she assures, pleading her with her eyes. "Jemma!"

The brunette quickly nods and squeezes the gun at her waist, just to feel safer. She took the precaution to bring a night-night gun and a normal gun. She wouldn't want the man that took him away from her to live, would she?

Sometimes she hates what this world has forced her to turn into, but other times, she blesses this chance. Today, she thanks the universe. Today, she's going to get Fitz back and put a bullet through the monster's brain.

The explosion had to be Fitz's work. It had been the derivative of the Splinter Bomb he was studying back in the base, mixed with the effects of a real bomb that could also eat up anything non-human.

Fitz would have never created such thing and thrown it against them, she thinks as she runs down the stairs. This can't be him, but it also worryingly looks like him.

Something isn't right and she can't put her finger on it. It's driving her _nuts_.

She violently slams the front door open to face worried-looking Daisy and Lincoln.

"Upstairs!" she lets out and they nod, dashing to where she's coming from. Jemma claps a finger on her ear. "May, where to?"

Only static answers, and she rolls her eyes outwardly. Since Fitz left, no one has been able to repair the coms as Daisy accidentally broke them during a mission. Mack had tried but he didn't have the little monkey's hands. No one has Fitz's hands.

It's only after that mental inappropriate statement that Jemma glimpses him.

Cars are screaming and people are running, terrified by the gigantic explosion above their heads and thinking it's the aliens all over again. Videos are already being taken and put online, which is gonna be a hard task to delete later (a glimpse of curly hair in the mass of panic) she sees a dog yap furiously, freed from its human, an abandoned little boy crying in the middle of the street (a badly shaven scruff and shiny blue eyes), her feet start running by themselves, her ponytail slaps the back of her neck and the pain in her wrist is nothing but a memory.

Nothing else matters.

Nothing but the blue-eyed man in the black sea.

"Fitz!" she yells, waving her arms frantically. "Fitz!! Over here!"

She has the irrational terror that if she lets him out of his sight, he would disappear just like he did six months earlier.

He turns back and sees her. Watches her, intensely, for the longest seconds of Jemma's life, and she chokes on her tongue, chokes on the same air he's breathing - they're sharing the same bloody air for god's sake for the first time in an eternity - she can't look away from him. No matter how hard she tries to see the other man next to him, her vision has tunneled down to him and only him, and she promises to herself that she won't ever let him away of her sight.

She doesn't realize how much she had missed him until she sees him again and he looks away.

Emotionless.

He looks away and it's like he doesn't even remember her.

Something shatters. She feels it more than she hears it, and realizes that it's inside her.

Jemma Simmons and Leopold Fitz are known to be so close it's like they share the same brain. People usually tend to mix them, and call them by one single name. Without each other, they are nothing. No one.

Just one single name in the middle of an ocean. A name that drowns until death until oblivion.

But Jemma is someone without Fitz. An right now, she's desperate and as stubborn as ever because _she is going to get this piece of her back._

She starts running.

Three hundred feet between them but she would never miss him for the world.

It's quite easy to see the other man, really, and she wonders how she hadn't taken a particuliar interest in him earlier; the two of them are the only ones that are not running away screaming. The other man, long slender body, purple coat, leans to Fitz, tilts his head to his ear, and whispers something.

And Fitz stares back at her.

She gasps. Stops.

The sea of crowd slowly untangling between them does nothing to attenuate the look on his face. She has never seem him so hard, so merciless but so fragile all at once; the glimmer in his eyes is lost, drowned into a tidalwave of anger. Pure rage.

Hate.

Desperation.

She sees it in the crease of his chapped lips. She sees it in his furred eyebrows. She sees it in his trembling hands when he slowly takes something oval in the pocket of his jumper, and steps toward her. She sees it in him like she could see it in her.

The man disappears somewhere, she doesn't really pay attention to him anyway. Her plan on killing the bastard has vanished like fog on a window (but the words can always come back if someone exhales on the glass) and all she sees is him, all he sees is her and a veil of red in front of his eyes.

She murmurs his name, once, and twice once he's only thirty feet away from her. The gun shakes in her hand, just like the Splinter bomb shakes in his.

"No." she whispers. She can't believe it, she won't, he won't do it. "Fitz. It's me. We're here for you - Fitz, do you see me? Fitz. Fitz - it's me."

He knows it's her, he has to. How can you forget the other half of yourself?

He opens his mouth, like mechanically. "He told me to kill you."

She almost gives up.

Almost.

"He did?" she echoes shakily. "Oh. He did. But you won't, will you? Kill me. You won't kill me. You hate killing, you hate violence, you hate change. I know you. You won't kill me."

"He told me to kill you." he repeats, like a robot whose eyes cry rivers of oil.

She backs away just as he slowly raises his arm to throw the bomb.

"No!" she cries out in a sob. "No, Fitz - you won't. I don't believe you."

"You should." he articulates with difficulty, before throwing it.

Jemma throws herself to the ground, loses the gun in the process. The Splinter bomb flies above her head, disintegrates behind her. It's almost as if he missed his target on purpose.

She looks up just as he throws himself at her.

They roll on the ground in a tangled mess, his trembling fists heading for her throat. She has the time to scream his name before they surround her neck, cutting the air short from coming to her lungs. She kicks the ground in vain, slaps his wrists, tries to punch his face, palps the ground with her palms to touch her gun but it fell two inches too far away - his grip on her tightens, tightens until all she sees is a black veil and his face, torn apart by indifference.

She gargles, coughs and chokes. She knows how long it'll take for the brain to run out of oxygen, eventually leading to death. Between thirty seconds to a full minute. After that, she's dead, and there's no coming back.

She's a scientist. She's a realist. She doesn't believe in after-life or chances. But she refuses to die by Fitz's hands.

And she's always been a better swimmer underwater.

Her kicks eventually weaken and her slaps turn into fragile waves that wouldn't harm a fly. Her eyes roll back into her head. Her hands fall to her sides. Her body goes lump.

She stops moving, breathing, living.

Fitz instantly releases his hands around her throat and looks at them with an improbable mix of satisfaction and horror. He scrambles away from her inanimate corpse, gets on his feet. He opens his mouth to cry out, something like a sob, but nothing comes out of it, nothing but dull silence. He loses his balance, falls to his knees, gets back up, only to glimpse Jemma's body and somehow fall again.

It's a mantra.

Seeing her, swallowing his own tongue, falling, choking, trying to choke himself just like he choked her to death, failing miserably.

The fifth time he falls and sees her, she isn't on the ground anymore.

She's staring right back at him, standing up, gun aimed for his chest, and she's crying.

His feet move by themselves and he swims to her (he needs to kill her if he doesn't something bad will happen he needs to kill) but she's already pulled the trigger.

He falls one last time like a wave crushed by a barrage. Doesn't move anymore.

Jemma's throat is raw. Her tongue heavies a foul, acrid taste, her skin is burned where he assaulted her and she knows it'll leave a mark of fire, but right now she doesn't care.

She shot him.

Simmons shot Fitz.

And the fact that she used dendrotoxin instead of a real bullet doesn't change anything.

She sinks slowly to her knees by his head that she places on her lap. She strokes his hair, gently, feels the roughness of his hair, inhales his musky scent (he hasn't showered in a long time and it shows).

She has to be strong.

She can't crumble.

She presses the com at her ear.

"Sir, I found Fitz. Can you give us a lift?"

She doesn't know how she found the strength to stop her voice from quivering. She doesn't know how she found the strength to pull the trigger on Fitz either. She presses her hands on his cheeks, caresses them. She skims over them, delicately clearing his face from the sweat, the dust, the worries. It's going to be okay, she knows it. It's going to be okay. It has to.

The skin of her neck keeps catching fire when Coulson and Mack land with a containment module.

 

* * *

 

She's there when he wakes up, barely four hours later.

She's been talking to him the past hour, telling him that Daisy and Mack are currently tracking down the man who did this to him, that Lincoln is taking care of Hunter and Bobbi is analyzing all the datas with the other scientists to find a cure to whatever disease he holds. She's told him how much she has missed him, how much she misses him and what they're going to do once this nightmare is through. She'd plan a trip. Just the two of them, somewhere quiet, maybe in Scotland? It's been a while since he's seen his mother, now would be a good time to say hi. Or maybe just take a long holiday, away from everything. Just the two of them.

Just the two of them.

He jolts awake on his white bed, looks around him frantically, until he spots her inside the pod.

His chapped lips curl into a snarl and he dashes to her without analyzing the situation, without even realizing that he's wearing new sterilized clothes and he's being held prisoner, no, he simply throws himself against the window of the cabin.

Jemma's eyes widen and she lets out a yelp of surprise just as his face connects with the solid glass.

His nose is bleeding. He probably broke it. He doesn't seem to feel the pain.

He hits the glass once more, then tries to break it with his fists.

"Stop!" Jemma cries out, her sore larynx sending her spikes of pain. "Fitz, what are you doing?!"

It's not Fitz. It's a rabid dog, blood splashed on his white shirt, foam pouring out of his mouth, saliva wetting his chin.

"He told me to kill you!" he barks.

His eyes cry. Salt cascading down his raw cheekbones. He's grown thinner during these last six months, and he's probably underweight now. Seeing him so physically and mentally broken tears out an other cry from her pained throat.

She misses the curves of his cheeks.

"Stop it!" she yells as he punches the glass hard enough to break his hand. "Leo!"

He looks up like startled, the foam at the corner of his lips dripping on his shirt. "He told me to kill you." he repeats numbly.

It doesn't feel like a statement, but more like a question. She doesn't have the answer unfortunately.

"Why?" she asks, hugging herself to find the comfort he can't procure. "Fitz. Why?"

He shakes his head violently, splashing the glass with more blood and saliva. She stares down the droplet of hemoglobin slowly descending the window.

"How?" she asks instead.

He clamps both of his palms against his ears and sinks to his knees, letting out a short scream. Jemma steps to the glass, eyes widening in fear to lose him. Jumps when he punches the spot on which she laid her hand on.

Suddenly she knows.

She can't do this.

Heart beating erratically in her chest, agony building in her heart, she turns her back on what was once her best friend and looks up the security camera.

She nods.

May comes in five seconds later, opens the pod door, and shots down Fitz with enough dendrotoxin to keep him asleep for two days.

Then she lets Jemma crumble down on her shoulder.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is sadder than I meant it to be.
> 
> ...
> 
> Thank you for reading this! I really poured everything into this chapter.

Fitz gets out of quarantine after a full week of testing and unresolved analyzes. At least the "virus" isn't airborne or contagious, and its effect seem to disappear after maximum ten hours. Fitz is safe and sound, and can go back to his normal previous life. Lab work, junk food, cynicism, monkeys.

Jemma hovers at his door at night, listening to his breathing and snoring. She hears the creaking of his bed as he rolls on the side, which is assurance that he is truly alive. When Mack comes to bed after a late video game night with Hunter, he finds her on the floor in front of Fitz's door, and always helps her back to her own room. She tells him to keep the door ajar because Fitz might need her help during the night.

She tosses in her bed, unable to find comfort in Morpheus' sweet arms, eyes always drifting to the hallway where a light could spring to life, warning her that he's awake.

The dark doesn't stir, not even once.

 

* * *

 

He's still asleep when she eats her breakfast and heads for the gym with Daisy. She does her morning run while the hacker punches a few bags with Bobbi. When she takes a shower after her load of sweating, his door is closed just like it was the night before. She presses her ear against it, listens intently, hears his chest rising. She thinks it's normal. After all, he has lived through a very traumatic experience and it's a natural body reaction to try and cope by sleeping.

He's still in bed after she's ran her usual experiments on his skin tissues and eaten lunch. She creaks his door open, drops off his favourite prosciutto sandwich by his bedside. Hesitates, and kisses his cheek, so lightly he thinks it's only a breeze.

It's the first time she touches him since he tried to squeeze the life out of her, the first time she touches him since he banged against the glass separating them, saliva pouring out of his mouth; it's the first time she touches him really in six months.

It's a kiss, a kiss on the cheek, just like the ones she gave him before he drowned. She longs for more touches, for more kisses that don't involve one of them almost dying.

They came across the end so often to know that death is one kiss away from life.

She steps away from his curled up form, and shuts the door behind her.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up with a knock on his door, and the sound of it squealing as it opens. He rolls on his back, opens weary eyes for the SHIELD director.

"Hi Fitz." the man says with his eternal suit and smile.

Fitz doesn't speak. He sits up and brings his legs closer to his chest, like an intimidated child as Coulson chooses to sit by his feet.

"You didn't eat the sandwich Simmons made you." he says, pointing out the plate with the unread note and the bottle of water.

"Im not hungry." Fitz replies, his voice barely a rattle.

"Even if you aren't, you should at least take a bite. Can't have one of my best agents to starve, can I?"

Fitz doesn't even react to the compliment. He's a battery that's been unplugged for too long.

Coulson lifts a hand to seemingly put it paternally on Fitz's shoulder, but he shifts uneasily and hunches like a beaten dog. Shaken up, Coulson slowly lowers his arms.

“It's okay.” he says softly. “You know it's me, Fitz. I would never hurt you.”

Fitz nods, maybe too quickly. “I know.” he says. “I know, but he could tell you to, and you would do it. You would do it without thinking twice about it.”

Coulson watches him silently for a long time. Fitz doesn't dare meeting his stare. He stays with his eyes locked on the sheets, rubbing his tired lids with the back of his hand from time to time.

“I don't know what you've been put through.” Coulson begins quietly. “But I've seen that look on your face too many times to know that I don't want you to stay that way. You're our best eye witness to catch the bastard who did this to you.” Fitz continues to avoid his stare, barely shifting. “I'm going to assign doctor Garner to you.”

He looks up, blinking a little in front of Coulson's warm features. “I don't want to see anyone.”

“What happened happened, and you're now safe with us. No one blames you, Fitz.”

“But I blame myself.” His voice is only a whisper muffled by the hand he holds to his face. Coulson picks it up anyway.

“You should talk to Garner.” he repeats softly. “But mostly Jemma. She cares about you.”

“I'm the one who wrapped my h-hands around her throat --” Fitz moans, burying his hands into his curls, gripping the back of his neck, rubbing his reddened nose and his arms, pressing his thumb into the hollow of his palm. “I squeezed and I – I wanted to kill her. I wanted to.” he echoes like he can't believe the words. “And I'm the one who broke Hunter's legs with the bomb. I'm the cause of all this. I'm the reason you're all... scarred.”

“Fitz.” Coulson says, slowly but firmly. “Jemma's scar is already almost gone. Hunter's going to fully recover in a month. And we all know that you were under the control of this man. You have to move on, Fitz. Okay?”

This time, he doesn't try to put his hand on Fitz's shoulder, but the intention is there.

Fitz stays silent during five agonizing seconds. He observes his fingers, like he can't believe he still has ten. Then, slowly, he nods.

“Okay.”

When Coulson leaves, he falls back onto his bed, rolls up the sheets and curls up into a ball.

It may not have been his fault directly, but he had still wanted to kill them.

 

* * *

 

He doesn't go to his first meeting with Garner, or to the second, and doesn't plan to go to his third. He spends the days in his bed, which smells like sweat and dust. He doesn't always sleep, but he is always tired. He drifts in and out, sometimes wakes up and finds the light has slipped farther away from him. When his eyes aren't closed, he observes the ceiling and the stains on the sheets back when he and Jemma had watched a Doctor Who episode and she had spilled, out of emotion, her cup of chocolate. He remembers the pain on his lap when the little droplets had gone through his trousers. He remembers her little yelp of surprise and her babble of excuses. He remembers times like these when they were innocent and unbroken, before the ocean and HYDRA and the purple man.

He tugs a pillow closer to his chest, buries his face in it to silence his tears.

 

* * *

 

It's May who forces him to get off his arse. He had first intended to stay in bed until the day after the day after, barely getting out of it to urinate, but she barges into his room in the middle of the day and shakes him.

“Fitz, you have to eat.” she says, holding out the plate for him.

He stays on his stomach, an arm tucked near his head like a safety helmet. He isn't asleep, he's just lying there, not doing a thing except listening to his chest rise and fall.

May switches on the light, changing the color of the room from grey to painful white. He groans, moves onto his back and hides his eyes behind his palm.

“I'm not hungry.” he echoes.

May doesn't seem to care, and moves the sheets off his body. “It's been two days. You're losing weight again and your body won't stand it.”

He doesn't try to fight her because he would never fight May, so he sits up, his hand still shielding the brutal light from his unaccustomed eyes. “I'm just really tired.” he pretends.

“You're tired because your vitals are shutting down.” she says, trying to force some sense into him. “Simmons made you a sandwich. Respect her, respect yourself, and eat.”

He faces her and has never seen so much emotions on her features before, so he holds out a hand and lets May open the bottle for him. He brings it to his mouth and swallows slowly, taking his time because he knows his empty stomach won't stand a brutal stuffing. He takes a few bites of the sandwich, realizing just now just how thirsty and hungry he has been, realizing just now just how much he has given up on himself.

“You feeling better?” May asks once he's let down half of the sandwich and rubbed the last dust of sleep from the corner of his eyes.

“Yeah.” he replies as he licks the breadcrumbs on his lips. “Thanks.”

“Don't thank me.” she orders. “You did this by yourself.” She gives him one of her rare smiles, and tilts her head to the side. “Get up now. Time to stretch these legs.”

She takes him for a walk through the building. He can't help but notice she avoids the lab area, and he's thankful. He can't see Simmons, not now. He's not ready. He doesn't know if he's ever going to be ready.

Their path crosses Garner's, who tells Fitz to take his time to visit him. Thankfully they don't meet Simmons, Daisy, or Mack, and he suspects that May made sure that no one else is around so that he can keep his mind at rest.

She doesn't drop him off in his room, and instead takes him to her office. He instantly sits on the guest chair, fiddling anxiously with his fingers. His back hurts and his legs shake, and he feels more tired than ever, but also very much alive.

“So.” she begins, taking the seat behind her desk. “Tell me.”

He plays dumb. “Tell you what?” Obviously it doesn't work.

“Tell me what happened.”

He looks down, biting his lower lip harder than intended. “I can't.”

“Fitz.”

It's the quiver in her voice, so unusual and new, that makes him look up. Her face looks crippled under the lights coming off the fake windows, and the white of her eyes shines.

“I've been through it too.” she says, and it strikes something in him like a jump-scare. Of course. How stupid and selfish has he been. “I may not know what mind control feels like, but I know what it's like to be obligated to do something, and feel like hell after it. And so I'm asking you to not repeat the same mistakes I did.”

He watches her and doesn't back away from her stare anymore, not because he isn't afraid of it but because he sees all of the demons she fought and won in them. Wonders if he can do the same.

“What mistakes?” he asks.

May's voice has lost its firmness, and it's with softness and regret that she answers. “I let go of Andrew because I was scared to take him with me, but I was wrong. Do not push your friends away, Fitz. Do not push your loved ones away because you're afraid to face them and think they're going to look at you like you're the monster. You're not the monster. If you step away from them, you lose yourself, because at the end you can't survive on your own.”

It's the first time he hears her talk that much and she knows it, and retracts herself in a silence more comfortable. He nods, slowly, and brushes his crinkled shirt like it's nothing.

“Yeah. Okay.” Then, quickly: “I can't tell you what happened. I'm not...” He looks for the word as it slips out of his reach. “Ready. I don't think I'm ready yet.”

May nods. “I understand. When you feel like you can talk, go to me, or to Andrew. And if you don't want us to tell anyone else, just say it.”

“Okay.” he whispers, then he clears his throat. “Okay. Thank you, May.”

She doesn't reply but accompanies him to his room.

He drops back into the sheets, exhausted.

He doesn't tug the cry pillow to his chest.

 

* * *

 

 Fitz sleeps until a nightmare jolts him awake. When he starts screaming, he tries to stand up and instead sags toward the ground with a shredded face. He slips on a blanket, falls down on his arse, backs away from the bed until his head bangs against the wall.

He stays silent, recollecting his thoughts.

He hears more than he sees a blonde figure barge into the room and rush to him. A warm hand brushes against his cheek, soothes his torn skin.

“Hey. Fitz.” he hears Bobbi say with the smoothest voice. “It's okay. He's not here anymore. You're safe.”

He shakes his head, pushing her hand away. He opens his mouth to speak, say something, but he finds his voice too hoarse and broken and doesn't want her to see him this way.

His vision's obstructed by unshed tears. He brushes them away with his other hand, the right one too busy shoving Bobbi away from him.

“Fitz.” she murmurs softly. “You know he's gone, right?”

He pants and chokes on his tongue, and he feels like he's going to puke so he pushes himself to his feet, weakly grips the lamp at his bedside before it falls under his weight too, and Bobbi catches him in her arms before he drops forward like the man he shot a lifetime ago, two months ago, yesterday, in his dream.

She squeezes him tight like she can drain him of the pain and fear, and he hides his face into her shoulder. For once, he's glad she's way taller than he is.

His whole being goes slack and he uncoils in her grip, finally letting go like a rope tied to a mad horse. His brain is the nag, stung by horseflies, his body's the rope, dismantled by the crazed.

Crazy. Bloody crazy. He thinks he's bonkers now, that he's gone off his rocker. He's standing on a rock lost in the middle of the ocean, the same ocean he drowned into, and it's slippery, he loses his balance, the mad waves threatening to swallow him and give him a free merry-go-round ride.

Who wants a ticket? Five for nothing. It's cheap, it's affordable, it's gratuitous. The only condition? Losing your mind.

Bobbi holds him until he calms down, gently caressing his curls.

“I can't do it.” he mumbles into her shoulder. “I can't let go.”

Bobbi can't understand, of course. No one can understand what these past six months have been like to him. Though she keeps brushing his hair to the side like a mother would have done to her distraught child.

“You don't have to let go.” she says. “You can keep it in you under a lock. And when it explodes, the son of a bitch better be around.” She squeezes his shoulder, and pushes him gently away to look into his eyes. “That's what I do. I push all of my anger into my fists, into my sticks, and I fight.”

He nods, stifling a sniff. An horrid taste heavies on his tongue.

“I think I'm gonna puke.” he groans before he covers his mouth with a hand and dashes to the loo.

Bobbi waits for his spasms to be over, and gives him a glass of water so he doesn't have to vomit bile only.

When she leaves just like May and Coulson, he doesn't go to bed right away.

He's too afraid to dream again.

 

* * *

 

 

 Jemma continues to leave prosciutto sandwiches by his door when he's sleeping. He always reads the note on the bread, written with her best ink pen. Sometimes it's a simple

 

 

 

> Love, Jemma

 

Other mornings, it's a longer note, carefully folded.

 

 

 

 

> I'm out on the field today. Apparently they found an alien caducei buried in the heart of a Greek mountain, and I have the chance to analyze it! Think about it: what if this stick holds in its core all the secrets of medicine that we can't discover yet because of our inferior technology? We could find a cure to cancer, or AIDS! How great would that be?
> 
> Wish you were there with me,
> 
> Jemma

 

 

He lets down the notes with a sigh and hides them underneath the cry pillow, now useless. He's told himself that he's cried enough and that he will never cry again. It should work, he's pigheaded.

He hopes Jemma doesn't think his head looks like a pig's.

 

* * *

 

 

It's only a week and a half, after his release from quarantine, that he brings himself to talk to Garner.

When he welcomes the doctor in his room, he's made sure to tidy the bed, arrange the furniture and prepare the landscape of the Academy's front garden on the window. The broken lamp lays in a corner, but Garner doesn't make a comment.

Their exchange is brief, just like he previously crossed his fingers for it to be. They shake hands, smile, and that's it. It's nothing, but to Fitz, it's a huge step forward.

This evening, he dares staring back at himself in the mirror.

“Leadsworth.” he begins slowly, scrutinizing his eyes that flash back to him the portrait of a tired man. “A.S.T. Bus. Jemma.”

Leadsworth for his hometown, where he spent his childhood observing the skies and fixing clocks.

A.S.T for the Academy, where he began his journey as a sixteen year old with eyes full of stars and met the most amazing human being he ever crossed path with.

Bus for his first time on the field with his closest friend, the discovery of his second family and the pleasure from finding new and foreign things that scared the hell out of him at first, until he learned to enjoy them.

Jemma for everything and nothing that needs to be said.

His reflection is still the one of a tired man after the repeated words, but at least he knows he has something to hold on to, anchor in the sea.

 

* * *

 

When he wakes up the next day, he actually feels better, somehow. He knows it's the morning, because when he stands up to move the curtains, the believable landscape of a sunrise on the fake windows welcomes him. He drags himself to his bathroom and turns on the shower, starting the rushing white noise of the water that evaporates to the ceiling. He contemplates the dance of the flowing liquid before undressing and stepping inside, closing the shower curtain behind him.

He's never felt so cleaned after this.

He throws the clothes he's been sleeping in for the last days in the laundry basket, and puts on a blue shirt, slightly rolling up the sleeves. Black trousers, securing them with a belt. He feels more human already.

More himself.

He grabs his breakfast in the cafeteria, barely stopping to chat with the other SHIELD employees who wave at him. Makes himself a cup of tea with two sugars. The Grumpy Cat one has already been taken so he takes the Spock mug instead. He stares at the Vulcan's ears between sips, vaguely wondering if this alien specie exists somewhere in the universe.

He lets his feet draw him.

He takes a tour of the building, recollecting memories of the different rooms, creating a mental diary that's pages are turned backwards.

He heads for the gym, where he sees Hunter in his wheelchair with Bobbi, both of them throwing barbs and particularly long stares at each other. He doesn't want to disturb them, so he walks away just as Hunter challenges his ex-wife to carry his gigantic stick in her fists. What he means by gigantic stick, Fitz hopes it's only one of the weights on the shelf.

He passes by the garage, where Mack is fixing his bike. The mechanic doesn't see him, too busy lubricating it to pay attention to the little engineer.

He doesn't see Daisy, or May, figures they're on the field. He glimpses Coulson's silhouette in his office. He doesn't see any purple shadow that morning, no creeping figure with a shining smile and a honeyed voice.

He walks almost numbly, and his tea cools down.

He almost spills it when he recognizes the last place.

She stands in the middle of the lab, her ponytail brushing the back of her neck, back facing him. When he thinks about walking away and never coming back, she turns around.

"Hi Fitz." she says.

He finds himself trying to breathe louder just to make a sound.

"Simmons." he replies.

It's an odd impression of déjà-vu, one that feels too awkward and tension-filled. He meets her eyes and can't look away from the familiarity of them. It feels like home. It feels like the house he left with his parents when he was just four, only to come back fifteen years later and find it all renewed.

The house hasn't changed. He has.

Her face breaks into a smile, and her shoulders relax, but her fingers stay interlocked in front of her stomach like she doesn't know what to do with them.

"Did you get my sandwich?" she asks in a breath, a little shakily.

The question is perceived by his ears two seconds late, his eyes too busy roaming over her face. She isn't wearing makeup, only her white lab coat and this red shirt he knows scratches a bit at the contact. Soft black lines circle under her eyes and a thin pink line surrounds her throat like a collar. A wave of guilt rushes over him like a faucet that's being turned on. He swallows thickly.

"I did." he replies. The mug shakes between his hands. "It was very good."

She seems content, and uninterested by his answer. "Good." she continues, and he knows they're only talking about the sandwich because it's too hard to talk about anything else. "I was afraid I had put too much lemon juice in it..."

"No, it was good. Perfect." he shakes his head. "It always is."

"Really?" she absently inches closer, breaking the safe distance he had calculated between them.

"Yeah."

"Oh." Her voice cracks a little and she quickly covers it. "And, nice to see you, by the way. The lab missed you. Are you back to work then?"

He merely shrugs, thinking about the need he felt when he had wrapped his fists around her neck. "I don't know. Not really."

"Oh." She puts her hand on the same glasses she's thought about breaking under her heel, and squeezes them in her coat pocket. "Okay. Do you want me to do anything?"

He shakes his head. "I'm okay. Thank you for everything, Simmons."

She nods with a weak smile. "The pleasure is mine, Fitz."

He feels the eyes of the other scientists  on him, and decides that it's his cue to leave.

He turns his back on her, gestures for the door to open and walks out.

He drops his mug inside a nearby bin. Vulcans don't exist anyway.

 

* * *

 

Jemma watches him go and thinks that she's waited enough, that she won't allow him to keep his distances from her an other week.

She runs through the mecanical door, ignoring the whispers of her colleagues, and grabs his hand before he can sink further away from her.

He stares down at her hand, at his hand, at where their hands are interlocked, before pulling away a bit too quickly.

"What are you-"

"I've decided that I don't want you to stay alone." she says in a rush, flush flowing on her cheeks. "I let you be this week because I thought you'd be more comfortable with taking your marks on your own, but I think I was wrong. That's not how we work!" she lets out, like desperate. "We work side by side because we always are more brilliant this way, aren't we? I don't see why we should keep our distances now, especially not during times like these."

But Fitz has already taken a few steps back. "I'm not keeping my distances-" he pretends, but even Jemma doesn't buy it.

"You are, Fitz. And I just want my best friend back." She notices the disappearance of the heat of his skin against hers, and sighs. "No one really knows what happened to you and since you don't want to talk about it-"

"It's not that I don't want to talk about it, it's that I can't!" he cries out, throwing his arms in the air. "When I try to, it's like there's a lock in my brain that pushes on the button for my stomach- it makes me sick! It makes me sick not being able to talk to you, but it's for the best-" She inches closer to him, holds out her hand to reach out to him, but he steps back again. "Don't. Simmons, don't touch me!"

She stares at the infinity of molecules between them. "Are you afraid of me?"

He rolls his eyes in a very Fitz-like manner. "I'm not afraid of you, I'm afraid of myself! Afraid of what I did to you, of what I could still do..."

"But I'm not!" she yells. She knows people are often walking through this hallway but it doesn't matter. "I'm not afraid of you because I know we're going to kill the man responsible. It's all going to go back to normal!"

Fitz runs his hands over his face. "It can never go back to normal, Simmons - you don't understand, what the ocean damaged in me, the purple man tore it to peaces. You don't know what he made me do! He - he..." He gasps to catch his breath, barely able to look at her in the eye, before he chokes out: "He made me kill a man, Jemma."

His voice cracks.

"He forced me to watch him bleed out in front of me after I had put a bullet through him. I didn't even know him. I didn't even know if he had kids, a wife, a pet, I just knew he had messed with the purple man and that he had to pay for it, and nothing else."

This time, when she steps forward, he doesn't back away. And when she takes him in her arms, he doesn't shift either. He lets her kiss his cheek, and his forehead, and his nose, and everywhere except the lips. He twirls in a manic circle but she's on the merry-go-round with him, on the painted wood horse at his side.

She mouthes his name next to his ear. He doesn't cry. He just lets her hold him close to her heart as she kisses the death out of him.

 

* * *

 

He naps next to her that day, fully clothed, too empty to remove anything but his shoes. He knows she isn't asleep because she keeps slowly stroking his hair, his head in her lap. She doesn't complain about missing work. He doesn't comment about it either.

His nap turns into a colorless dream. He swims without drifting in and out the waves for the first time in an eternity. The ocean is at rest, the horseflies have calmed, and Jemma strokes his hair.


End file.
